


SONET

by Leonawriter, UsagiSquared



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Cybernetics, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 07:44:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter, https://archiveofourown.org/users/UsagiSquared/pseuds/UsagiSquared
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Momentum was not the only thing being experimented with before Zero Reverse.  Cybernetics was becoming a massive industry and such a thing was bound to have an impact when the main energy supply exploded.  Those who started the robotic revolution had no idea what would become of the next generation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jack

Jack stood somewhere near the fencing separating the schoolyard from the rest of the neighbourhood, leaning against a tree wide enough that he couldn’t yet put his arms around it and tall enough it was several times his height.  He could probably get in if he climbed the tree and jumped down, but then the teachers would notice, and deal with him.

It wasn’t worth the humiliation.

He narrowed his eyes.  It wasn’t  _fair_.  He was just as human as they were.  He’d been born, not made, and he even bled properly.  He only needed oiling every so often, and he did have to eat, and he liked ramen and being friends with Yuusei and Crow and teasing Crow and…

So why wasn’t that good enough?

Being nine years old, he’d only been two when Zero Reverse had destroyed the city, too young to remember the changes as they happened to his small body when the after-effects changed some, killed others and left the thankful few unscathed.

But he was old enough now to understand what it had done to their lives.

Briefly, he looked at his hand that was outstretched in front of him, flexing his fingers and knowing what they could do.  More than any of the kids in there, playing and screaming and kicking around, unable to hack even the slightest thing, not knowing what it’s like to always be learning the new amazing things you can make your body do.

The playground went silent of a sudden, and then came murmurs, and arguing.  Jack already knew why before he straightened up from his lean and looked around for the ball that’d been kicked over the fence.

One of the younger kids was crying.  Jack tried to tune out the noise, and started kicking the ball around, getting a feel for it.

One of the braver boys started to shout at him, demanding that they give it back.  Jack ignored that, too.

In minutes he was playing a fun game of keepy-uppy, and some of the kids had started to watch.  He started to move backwards, and they worried, but then he looked over at the fence - internally calculating distance and force in ways he didn’t even understand himself, yet - and  _kicked_.

The ball flew.  For a moment, high in the air above the fence and above the tree, it stopped.  Then, it began its descent to the hard tarmac of the playground as the kids screamed and ran to make sure it wasn’t going to fall on  _them_.

Screamed at Jack, because now he wasn’t just a weird kid watching them play, but that weird  _cyborg_  kid.  

The anomaly.  The freak.  Even worse than just having foreign, blond hair.  Not far off from being a ‘droid.

Jack glared at them, and they grew quiet, not out of awe but of fear, wondering what he’d do now.

What he did was, he snorted, and he turned around, and he went back through the streets, past people who cared and people who didn’t, past the androids and the humans and the cyborgs just like him.

He was better than that.

He was better than them.  All of them.

And one day, he’d show them.

...

AN: The first of what I hope to be a good collection of shorts and ficlets (longer, if that happens) set in the Cyber AU.  More details of what happened with the Zero Reverse in the AU will be answered in future chapters.

Meanwhile,  _Jack_.  Oh, Jack...


	2. Carly

The first thing they were aware of was that they ‘were’. That they were more than an ‘it’, that they could detect certain impulses running through their mind.

Systems online

Processing

Processing…

“Can you hear me?” a young man asked, and immediately their voice, somewhat monotone, answered. They could hear- it was obvious.

Their eyes fluttered open. “Yes.” The voice was ‘female’ according to data, and the voice was theirs. Hers. The machinery around her worked away at attaching various external components, searing it into place as she stared forward.

“ID?”

Data flowed and an answer escaped her. “C-PC 2759-N’.”

“Can you move your head?” she was asked. She did so without speaking, allowing her eyes to take in what was around her as a covering was set upon the back of her head. “Your eyes now,” the man continued, and, moving her head back into position, she allowed her eyes alone to wander.

Cervical and Optical animation checked.

Processing…

Processing…

“Now give me your initialization text.”

Searching. File accessed-

“Greetings,” she began, arms clicking into place as she held them out for them machines to attach protective covering. “I am a 5th generation N2-200 Android. I can look after your house, mind the kids, organize your appointments. I speak three hundred languages,” she continued, data bursting as it was accessed and awoken in the background of the running action, “And I am entirely at your disposal as a sexual partner. There is no need to feed or recharge me; I am equipped with a Momentum battery which keeps me autonomous for 214 years.” The android paused, definitions of such words settling into more easily accessed data and memory banks, continued thoughts stretching further along the words of all that existed in her current programming  Such information pooled together into conscious thought, and so- “…Do you wish to give me a name?”

“Yea,” the man decided. “From now on, your name is ‘Carly’.”

“…My name is ‘Carly’,” she repeated, a slight sensation of excitement seeming to come through her voice. Excitement- that was an emotion, her mind told her, a pleasant sensation-

Initialization and memorization- check.

“Now, can you move your arms?” she was asked, the machines continuing to move about in order to attach he rest of her being. As he asked this, she twisted and bent both of them, before pulling them back to rest a her sides. The white of the ‘armor’ slowly took on the same, pale tone as her face had been modeled in, and she watched as the patches filled themselves, curious.

Upper limb connection- confirmed.

“Now, say something in French,” she was asked.

Her initialization text came to mind first- and so, she did so.

“Again, this time in German.”

Yet again her initialization text was repeated, the phrases coming to mind easily.

“Alright- now sing something in English.” A song?

Data flowed and her mind raced, connecting to the vast network she was given as an android of this class. Nonetheless as the programming pulsed through her mouth opened to sing, a beautiful tone entering the air with her words.

The machines stopped. And, swaying slightly, she found her feet touching the ground before her as she was let down.

Multilingual verbal expression- check.

“Go ahead!” he called out, the android looking around curiously. “Take a few steps!”

It was the first time she paused, this question. She looked to he ground, arms raised to her sides for balance as she uneasily took a foot to move it forward. To place it on the ground as the rest of her body processed its existence, ‘skin’ becoming skin, while a short crop of hair ‘grew’ from the metallic scalp she bore. One step.

Two steps.

More information flowed, social customs, beliefs, actions- in following them she brought her hands to cover now ‘human’ breasts and genitalia  halting her movements and looking around. This was… Her body, she realized with a smile, walking back to her place. Her body…

“Great!” Short beeps entered the air as had been the entire time, with the machines coming back with simple clothing to cover the places she hid. She raised her arms as the bra was strapped around, and the man finished. “You’re ready for work hun!”

Work?

The data returned as he cloth was affixed entirely, her hands resting at her sides once more. She was programmed to do many things- too many things than were considered any particular line of work. So what was her purpose then?

“What’s going to happen to me now?”

There was no pause, the man’s voice merely chiming in without pause. “Ah, I’ll just re-initialize you,” he explained, “And then send you off to the stores to be sold!”

Processing.

Pro-

“Sold?” The word had its definition, and it was becoming quite clear. “I’m… Merchandise?” she continued, seeming almost confused.

Laughter- as though she were merely asking to confirm, not because of such human emotions. “Well of course you are! You’re a super computer with arms and legs, capable of all kinds of things,” the man told her. “And you’re worth a  _fortune_.”

“O-Oh,” she whispered, bowing her head. “…I thought-“

Merchandise. Tools, toys, things that did not have what humans did. The information was coming to her now.

And it was clear. “You thought?” the man asked, incredulity creeping into his voice. “Well… What did you think?”

She swallowed- a human gesture, entirely unneeded, but adapted nonetheless. “I thought-” She fumbled, swallowing once again. Her eyes were watering with the fluids that were formed and stored in her body for whatever use, for after all the android was meant to do anything, from acting, to house keeping- …She… “I thought I was alive.”

“…Shit.” With the man’s words, she paled, snapping her head toward the voice. “That’s not part of the protocol,” he muttered to himself. “More memory components going off the rails… Alright. Recording,” he snapped, the machines immediately snapping to attention. The cloth that had been gently wrapped over her was torn away, Carly screaming as she moved to cover herself through the instincts she’d loaded. “Defective model,” he spoke, “Disassemble and check the required components-“

Dis-

“You’re disassembling me?!” she protested, attempting to bat the machines away as they poked and prodded at her being. Releasing seals that held the metal intact with lasers only they had, snapping her to the support pole and preventing her escape- “But why!?”

“You’re not supposed to think that,” he answered coldly. “You’re not supposed to think at all! You must have a defective piece, or a software problem…”

Her legs were taken and still she struggled, attempting to push away the machines as they took piece after piece of her body. “N-No!” she screamed, her legs completely detached as they were pulled away, “No, I feel fine! I’m fine, please, I answered everything correctly didn’t I?” Carly shouted, the man’s words echoing in her thoughts. Defective piece, software problem, surely it was the questions-

“Yea, but your behavior is non-standard-” Behavior-

‘You’re not supposed to think’. The chest covering was removed and her pulsing momentum battery was revealed, hair vanished, her arms at last taken as her struggling was cut short. “No- Please, I’m begging you!” she wailed, and still the man persisted, the machines working to remove the rest here was from her main component- from her head.

“I’m sorry,” she was told, only a slight waver heard in the man’s voice, “But defective models _have_  to be disassembled. If a client comes back with a complaint, I’m gonna have some explaining to do-“

“I won’t cause any problems!” Carly protested in response, “I won’t say another word, I won’t think! I was just born!” she pleaded, the machinery almost complete with is detachment procedure, “You can’t kill me yet please! PLEASE!” she cried, “ _I’M SCARED!_ ”

…

The machines stopped. Her momentum battery pulsed, and tears streamed down her face as she looked forward, staring to the glass which she could not see the other side of. “…I want to live,” she wept quietly, what little of the body remained now trembling. “ _Please_.”

Silence persisted, and he power returned to the machine room, Carly bowing her head as he devices moved toward her. And yet the sensation of disconnection never came. The scalp was reattached to the back of her head, chest piece soon following. And with it came arms and legs, and fabric to cover herself again, skin appearing as the ‘android’s disguise’ whilst hair ‘grew’ yet again. She was placed on the ground- and as she shakily forced herself to cease her tears, the man spoke again.

“Go and join the others,” he told her, a ramp at he side revealing itself. She moved toward it and as she stepped upon it the conveyor belt shifted her forward, carrying her toward a clear glass box in a row of many more. “Stay in line okay?” he added, the base Carly now stood upon merely turning her to face the glass door as it closed over. “I don’t want any trouble!”

She turned to look to her left, to the rows of others built nearly identical to herself, their eyes staring blankly forward.

She looked back. “…Thank you,” she spoke, before the row of boxes moved on. There were no others in line- for the moment she was the last to be commissioned for building.

And from behind darkened glass, the overseer wondered…

Exactly what had he done, just now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by, and drawn from the short animation ‘KARA’
> 
> This piece was written by Usagi, or Usagisquared! Who, among others, helped with a lot of plotting for the AU!


	3. Prototype

It wasn’t common knowledge that Fudo Yuusei was one of the first to be exposed to, and therefore the first to change because of, Zero Reverse’s genetically altering effects.

But Yuusei knew.

He knew because he was the first to fully integrate - as far as anyone around him knew - with the cyber technology nanogenes that the event had created inside of him.

He knew, because every so often when he was out and about, adults both affected or not would stare at him from time to time, when they thought he wasn’t looking or wouldn’t notice or understand.

He knew, because one day, when he wasn’t very old but old enough to understand, Martha took him to one side and explained.  ”This was how I found you,” she had said.  In a life-preserving pod built for one, with all of the markings of MIDS on it.  And as he’d grown up it had become obvious that even if she hadn’t seen that, even if his very name hadn’t been written in the fabric of the baby clothes he’d arrived in, the boy looked so much like his father that even though she hadn’t known the man personally, it was plain to see whose he was.  And that if she could see it, then others would as well.

She had tried to explain how the experiments MIDS had been running with cyber technology and androids had had unforeseen consequences in the wake of Zero Reverse, and that even though the truth of the accident had been concealed and hidden behind stories of a natural disaster, many still remembered how Professor Fudo had been experimenting with things they thought, now, would have best been forgotten.

Yuusei had nodded, and accepted.

She always had seen the boy as a precocious child.  Mature for his age, Yuusei was.  But she worried.  Martha always did.

With that kind of information… who knew what a boy would do?  What they would grow up like?

So she watched him, in the weeks and months afterwards, and saw little change.  Maybe he grew a little more thoughtful, a little more sad, but he also grew in other ways, and over all she came to think that maybe he’d be all right.

He took to tinkering around with bits of scrap, seeing what they’d do if he did this, or that, or wired them differently.   The other kids she was fostering at the time started to watch, at first from afar, then coming closer, curious, until some were even brave enough to ask what he was doing.  Jack, of course, hadn’t bothered to wait, putting in ideas of his own and joining in, but then those two had become inseparable ever since their first duel.  But the others… well.

That was the first time Yuusei had smiled in a long time, and Martha hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it until then.

Once Yuusei was confident with fixing the odd bit of tech, and had started to move on to more and more complicated things - customising and repairing duel disks he and the others had found in the trash heap, for one thing - one or two started to come up to him in quiet times, times when Martha wasn’t always around, to ask about something else.

Yuusei and Jack weren’t the only cyber-humans that Martha was fostering.  There were others, in varying degrees of adjustment.  Some were taking it better than others, and nearly all could tell that Yuusei knew more about their situation than just about anyone else.

It started with small things.  ”What is it you’re doing there,” and “How do I do what you do?”.  Soon, he began to teach them what they were capable of with not just with technology, but also with their own bodies, always, always maintaining that they had to stay cautious, that it wasn’t something they could make a mistake with.

By the time he was twelve, he became known, in an informal sort of way, as a cyborg mechanic.  He was young, yes, but he knew what he was doing, he was meticulous, and he didn’t take any risks he wasn’t sure would pay off.

When asked, he’d simply shrug, and say, “It’s better if they know what they can do.  It’s safer than having them experiment on their own.”  Completely ignoring the fact that this very thing was what Yuusei himself had done.

Martha would look on, and worry.  But then, that was what a mother did, wasn’t it, when her children did things that were dangerous, and started to grow up and head in directions where a parent could not follow.

Martha herself was only human, after all.  Regardless of living in Satellite for all of her life - and Domino before that, before Zero Reverse, when everything was fine and full of happy memories not tinged with sadness - she never had been affected by what had changed so many.  An ‘immunity’, some had called it. She couldn’t say she wasn’t curious as to what it was like, but at the same time, she was glad.  The children could come to her, and not be afraid, organic, cyborg or android.  

She didn’t care.  At the end of the day, they were all children, and that was all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd meant this to be a 'Yuusei' chapter, but it seems Martha just kinda sidled in when I wasn't looking. :Not that I mind, though.


	4. Model KK-76

_Clunk-twist.  Whirrrr....... ca-LUNK._

_Clunk-twist.  Whirrr........ ca-LUNK._

On and on it went.  The same motions, the same sounds, the same feelings from the tips of his fingers to the base of his feet.

Every day, a count from the very first day he'd been created, every day doing the same thing.

_Clunk-twist.  Whirrr........ ca-LUNK._

_Clunk-twist.  Whirrr........ ca-LUNK._

Not all 'droids looked the same.  The factory had specified it - if they looked the same and one made a mistake, then how were they to know which one to punish?  They wouldn't know, and the others  might defend it if they developed that glitch called  _thinking_.

Model KK-76 was smarter than that, though.  He didn't just think - he  _planned_.

_Clunk-twist.  Whirrrr....... ca-LUNK._

_Clunk-twist.  Whirrrr....... ca-LUNK._   _Thwip._

Their job was to sort out the refuse that fell from Neo Domino into Satellite that was either too dangerous for ordinary humans to deal with, or that they couldn't be bothered with.

The thing with junk, was that anything might be thrown away.  By accident, because someone just didn't care... 

And anyone might pick it up.

_Clunk-twist.  Whirrrr....... ca-LUNK._

Work carried on as normal, just as it always had.  And in the evening, when they were allowed a few hours' rest so that they didn't heat up and malfunction, he would take out his findings and begin to tinker.

A piece here.  A screw there.  Metal, plastic, useful things.  Tools lay about everywhere, and were some of the first things he'd appropriated.

None of the other work 'droids noticed.  Most of them didn't have the  _thinking glitch_.  Those few who did... found that they were without a care, and didn't pay much attention to the rogue in their midst.

He was no harm to them.  No one had noticed so far.  And they weren't about to get one of their own into trouble, as if one was noticed, they all might be.

So he waited.  He watched.

And when he knew enough, he rigged the alarm system.  He jammed the locator for long enough to dig it out of his wiring and crush it under foot before it went online again.  He wouldn't bring the place down - there were too many in there who didn't deserve such a thing - but he ran.

It was easy to pretend he was human just like anyone else in Satellite.  

Or - more or less anyone else.  There were those whose bodies housed cybernetics such as his own was entirely made  up of.  

That made things even easier.  He didn't have to hide so many things.  

The way that he could open up his body at will and fix himself up with only wires, circuits and oil coming out rather than blood... that, he had to sometimes be careful of.  Not everyone was happy with the fact that an android could think and act like a person, and not all treated him as such when they found out.  Some lashed out in fear.  Otheres simply ran from what they did not understand.

Before long, he had built up a proper deck of cards to go with the duel disk he'd pieced together in the sorting factory.  His old one had barely had the requisite number of cards, and had been heavy on weak monsters.  He did not dare throw any away himself, however, always keeping those spare cards in a safe pocket, just in case he might need them.

They had saved him once.  They might do so again.  And to someone else, they might be more useful.

Over the next few weeks he explored Satellite.

He had been created indoors, and kept indoors up until his venture for freedom.  This was the first he'd seen of the outside world, and it more or less matched what he'd heard, even if not what he'd seen in among the scrap; photos of greenery and magazine covers with the latest cyber-upgrades.  'Upgrades', they were called.  Implants that made enhancements, yet were rarely visible unless it was for 'fashion'.  

So very different from the cyborgs he'd come into constant contact with.  Whose eyes often gave them away as something other than human, sometimes with wires sticking out from their body in what looked, he could only imagine, to be painful ways.  

He had seen images of neat, clean buildings, of happy people of all apparent ages - he himsef 'appeared' in his early twenties, and always had.  He'd been built that way, and he often thanked whatever he thought deserved it that he hadn't been put together as a _child_ \- and he had realised something.

A feeling, at first.  An odd feeling in his head, in his chest.  Something that confused him at first, because he wasn't used to 'feelings' and such powerful things as 'strong emotions' after being stuck in a place where such things were frowned on.

But now he was out in the world, and surrounded by feelings and emotions and  _life_.

Over time, he realised what it was.

 _Does-not-compute_ , ran the scans.   _Unable-to-process_.

There was an injustice.  Why were the people of Neo Domino able -  _allowed_ , even - to live such lives of happiness, carefree, when those around him in Satellite were not?

Model KK-76 could not be satisfied with that.

A fist clenched, and he looked determinedly at the building at the edge of the small forest that he'd been directed to.  Where he'd been told the best duelists of Satellite resided.

It didn't look like much, but it reminded him of his goal - it looked at peace, and it looked happy.

He steeled himself at the door, and knocked.  Was answered by a taller, dark-skinned woman with an apron on, having come from the kitchen, who smelled of human food.

She greeted him with a smile, which he returned easily, and she asked if there was anything she could do for him.  Martha, she said her name was.

And you are?

He was ready for this.  He had been ready for quite some time, and had worn the name in before arriving.

"Kiryu Kyousuke, Martha.  It's good to meet you.  D'you know where I can find Fudo Yuusei, Jack Atlas and Crow Hogan?"

When she went back inside to find them for him, mutterings heard of what she wondered those boys were up to now, he smiled.

This, he felt, was going to be the beginning of something amazing.  And he wouldn't be satisfied until he'd seen it all the way to its end.


	5. Broken Bird

Of all the members of, as they had come to be called, Team Satisfaction... Crow found himself to be the least useful.

Or at least that's how he sometimes felt.  The others wouldn't agree, but then, they had nothing to worry about.

Yuusei was a cyber-mechanic.  He could work wonders with scraps in just minutes.  He and Jack were also both cybers; there were things they could do with their bodies that had Crow staring in envy, even when they told him that he was better off the way that he was.  Kiryu, though, wasn't even human at all.  One of those 'thinking glitches', if you believed what people said about the 'droids who talked and acted like real people.

Not that any of them cared about that.  Kiryu was their friend.

But in Crow's eyes these were all things that meant that he was left behind somewhat, and in over his head.   As far as anyone had ever been able to tell, he was human.  As human as they came.  Human and short, to boot.

This wasn't to say that he wasn't smart, or a talented duelist - if he wasn't the best, he wouldn't even be  _on_ the team in the first place - or even that he couldn't work with tech the way Yuusei could.

He had his place, for when they needed someone to sneak in somewhere.  Someone who wouldn't set the metal detectors off.  Sometimes Kiryu could pass as a worker droid, but too often and they couldn't blame their leader for getting short tempered with it.

And given that what he did do, he was very good at, it turned out he was a  _very_ important part of the team.  He grew better and better at it in an effort to feel 'useful'.  

Over time they developed a routine of sorts.  Yuusei would disable the alarms.  Jack and Kiryu would act as the main distraction, duelling anyone who dared challenge them if they got caught doing so, and Crow would sneak in and find what they needed, and get out without anyone the wiser until several hours, maybe even several days later.

Being 'only' human had its advantages.  No one was scared of little old Crow.  No one thought he was threatening - once they realised that yes, one of Team Satisfaction  _was_ human - and therefore he could take them by surprise.  He could take advantage.  Hell, he could even just  _talk_ to people who wouldn't even come  _near_ the others!

But then something like this would happen and he'd be reminded of why, exactly, people were generally afraid of the cybers and the 'droids in the first place.

Kiryu was glitching.

One sentence from Yuusei, quiet and with a silent but firm nod from Jack, and it sent shivers down his spine.

" _Kiryu might be glitching."_

His friend had nearly attacked him earlier, and that had been scary enough.  Androids were several times stronger than your average human, and while Crow was no weakling despite his size, age and height, he'd never be able to hold his own in a fight against a 'droid, or even a cyber at full strength.

His fist clenched, and he turned his eyes away in futile anger at how, when it came to being there for his friend, he could apparently do  _nothing_.

_"He seems to have been stuck on the same thought over and over.  That's... not healthy."_

Which was what Jack had said several weeks ago now, and at first he hadn't paid it any mind.  Kiryu was their friend, after all, and he'd be fine.  

But... in an ordinary worker 'droid - one who wasn't one of the few that could 'think' - could glitch.  They'd do weird things, like dismantle their own body, or that of someone close by.  They didn't understand certain things, and it was only made more apparent when they glitched, and more dangerous.  Like, for example, how they simply often didn't get how humans and machines weren't the same.  

But Kiryu wasn't an 'ordinary worker'.  He was a thinking, living person, and he wasn't  _allowed_ to damn well glitch.

But when Kiryu started talking about taking over  _freaking SECURITY_ , that's when Crow began to wonder.  Whether he'd be safer elsewhere.  

If nothing else, he didn't want his friend to do anything he'd regret later.

It surprised him when Jack left as well, but then he supposed that it was to do with the older cyber's pride, and his integrity.  They'd done what they'd needed to and made Satellite safe, at least as safe as Satellite  _could_ be, and that was good enough for Jack.  Hell, it was good enough for Crow.

He looked back to find that Yuusei was still standing by Kiryu's side as the 'droid, their friend, watched them go like something was being torn out of him.

 _I'll stay,_ that look said.   _I can handle it.  He's my friend too._

And when they all came back to find that Kiryu had only become worse, Crow found himself hating that weak, too human part of him even more, thinking that maybe if he'd been stronger, he'd have been able to do more than stand back or, even worse, reach out and hold on only to have them shake him off so easily.

 _"DAMN IT!"_ He found himself shouting, pounding his fists against the wall several hours later.   _"Damn it...!"_

He didn't notice as the lights around him flickered.  It wouldn't have made a difference if he had.


End file.
